


take my hand (take my whole life too)

by herocomplex



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora (She-Ra) - Freeform, Catra (She-Ra) - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Intimacy, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Sharing a bathtub, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a soft epilogue, soft epilogue hours only, the mortifying ordeal of being loved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24243073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herocomplex/pseuds/herocomplex
Summary: “We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I saidWhat do you want, sweetheart?And you said,Kiss me.” Richard Siken,Snow and Dirty Rain.--"What are you doing?" Adora asked, with laugh."Talking to you through the door of the bathroom."--kind of spoilery for season 5
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 975





	take my hand (take my whole life too)

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, She-ra owns my entire gay ass. 
> 
> I've never really written fic before? But I read a lot of it and I love ya'll. Wasn't sure how to rate this either, so rating is mostly to be safe. Nothing sexy happens (sorry). 
> 
> Cheers to you Noelle, you mad bastard, you really did it.

After two, nearly three, days of travel and patching each other up, after they finally made it back to Brightmoon with everyone. After everything was said and done. All Adora wanted was a real bath and a real bed.

Adora might have forgotten how luxurious everything in Brightmoon really was. The bathroom just off her room had heated marble floors, and fancy mosaics on the ceiling that looked like the phases of the moon, and a huge gold bathtub where the water never got cold, and soap that smelled like lavender and rosemary. After ancient spaceships, and camping, and fighting for her life, it was genuinely amazing. 

Adora sighed and sunk further into the golden bathtub full of warm lavender bubbles. Her hair pooled around her in the water. She was clean and now she could stay there for as long as she wanted. She could feel all the aches leaching out of her muscles. It felt good. It felt good to finally be safe. It felt good to know that everyone she cared about was only a few rooms away and she could see them as soon as she was done. 

“Adora?”

Adora smiled to herself just above the water line, _or sooner._

“I’m in the bath,” she called back, tipping her head back against the lip of the tub. 

“Oh, uh, okay,” followed by the thump of someone sitting against the bathroom door. A second thump told Adora that Melog was there too. 

Adora could not fight the smile from her voice when she said, “What are you doing?”

“Talking to you through the door,” Catra replied with an implicit ‘duh’, “Um, Sparkles gave me my own room but I’d rather--I mean, if I could I--”

“Catra, do you want to have a sleepover tonight?” 

“Yes,” Catra breathed, then quickly, “I mean-- I guess, if you insist.”

Adora huffed a laugh.Then with her heart pounding she said, “Why don’t you come in?”

“Why don’t _you_ come _out.”_

“Because it’s nice in here. C’mon Catra, the waters warm…,” she sang. She wondered if Catra was blushing too. 

“I already took a bath,” Catra insisted. But the door knob still turned and she still stepped into the room and quickly shut Melog and the cold out. Catra _was_ blushing too, Adora noticed. Her hair was extra soft and curly from her own shower and she was wearing a thick white terry cloth bathrobe. Her tail was at maximum fluff and she wouldn’t look at Adora. Adora would of thought it funny, if she was not just as nervous.

By Adora's estimate, Catra was wearing nothing underneath the big terry cloth bathrobe. Which made Adora’s heart pound thicker and heavier in her chest.But she pushed past it. Adora had always been the braver of the two.

“C’mon Catra, you’ve seen me before.”

“Not recently,” Catra mumbled, blushing even worse. 

“We’ve even taken baths together before.”

“Not _recently_ ,” Catra squeaked, so scandalized she had to look at Adora.

Which was kind of the point. When she did look, Adora was sitting up a little more, arms on either side of the gold tub like she was sitting at the command console of the ship. Catra could see her chest and how Adora’s own flush inched past her collarbones. How all her freckles were in the same places they had always been. And Catra had to look away again. Her hands were trembling and her heart felt sloppy and uncoordinated in her chest. Part of Catra wanted to run from this (before she ruined it) but she had decided she was done running from Adora a while ago. Which really only left Catra with one direction to go in. 

“Catra, it’s just me,” Adora said, equal parts terrified and happy. 

Catra looked at Adora again at that, making sure to catch only her eyes, “Adora, there’s never been anything ‘just’ about you.”

“Get over here,” she responded with a huff and a hand extended over the lip of the tub.

Catra went. Catra threw her bathrobe in the direction of Adora’s discarded clothes. Adora sat up a little more in an unnecessary attempt to make more room in the bath. Catra sunk down into the water between Adora’s knees with a splash that caused a gratuitous amount of water to spill over the sides of the tub. But Adora’s arms were around her immediately and Adora was giggling into the back of her neck and the water was still nice and warm. So Catra went willingly. Sinking into the water and Adora’s chest in equal measure. Adora was broader than Catra, always had been, but it felt new and more obvious in that moment. Adora’s hands skated across Catra’s belly, up and down her ribs, down to her hips and back up to lock around her middle. Catra shivered back further into Adora’s chest and did not bother to suppress the thick, low purr that bubbled up her throat. 

“Purring? During a bath? This is a first,” Adora teased, her voice rumbling through Catra’s spine. 

“Well, you were right. It is nice in here.”

“I’m always right,” Adora said, and Catra could feel the smug curve of her mouth pressed into her bare shoulder. 

“Not sure I’d go that far,” Catra responded dryly.

Adora’s laugh landed against the back of her shoulder too. Catra tipped her head back against Adora’s shoulder and Adora held her just a little tighter, tucking her face into the crook of Catra’s neck. Catra tangled her fingers over Adora’s on her belly and curled her tail around Adora’s ankle. And Catra let herself surrender. Surrendering felt so good, so much better than winning ever had, that Catra wondered if it was because surrendering to Adora was a little bit like still winning. 

Adora went so quiet behind her, with deep even breathing, and arms growing heavy across Catra’s belly, that Catra thought she must have been dozing if not outright asleep. It was so warm and nice, and Catra liked the fact that they would both smell the same when they finally did get out. There was nothing to worry about here. No fight to try to win. Not anymore. This warm bathroom in Brightmoon, this gold tub with her best friend, was a bubble of perfect peace. Catra started to doze too.

So it was a surprise when, after a long stretch of comfortable silence, Adora said, “You asked me what I wanted.”

“Hmm?”

“That night, before everything, you asked me what I wanted.”

Catra shifted in her arms, waking up, and Adora stuck to her like a squid and pushed her fingers into the ticklish spot of her ribs on purpose. Catra squeaked out a giggle and tried to get Adora back with her elbow but only hit the side of the tub. And Adora was grinning against her throat so Catra couldn’t be too mad. 

“I wanted this,” Adora sighed, still smiling, “I wanted you.”

Catra went very still, her heart seizing tight and her hands going numb. She leaned further back so she could look at Adora and Adora obliged, looking back with eyes that were full, full, full. 

“Oh,” Catra breathed, still a little in awe at how love looked on Adora (how love directed at _her_ looked on Adora), “Well. Lucky for you my new gig is giving Princess Adora everything she wants.”

Adora didn’t say anything, just grinned down at her, pressed a long kiss against Catra’s temple and a second one to the corner of her mouth. 

“So, what else do you want, Princess?”

Adora shifted them back a bit into their previous position, pressing another kiss to the base of Catra’s neck.

“What else?” Adora asked breathless, like the thought had never crossed her mind. She went quiet as she thought about it, and said “I want sleepovers every night for the rest of our lives.”

“Okay,” Catra agreed easily, breathlessly, chest going tighter still. 

“I want all our baths to be like this.”

“All of them?”

“Yes,” Adora said, very seriously.

“That’s going to get inefficient very quickly,” Catra grumbled, but didn’t say no. 

“I want to go dancing with you--for real this time. I want to spar with you in the garden.”

“No magic swords.”

“No magic swords,” Adora agreed readily, “I want us to eat together-- the food here is so good-- but I don’t think we should cook together because that seems dangerous.”

Catra could not keep the laughter out of her voice when she agreed, because after everything they had been through, the Almighty She-Ra thought _cooking_ was dangerous . 

“I want to introduce you to everyone--really introduce you and show you all around Etheria and I want to take you to the beach and--and I don’t know, I want everything.”

“Okay, you can have it. All of it. It’s yours, Princess” Catra whispered. She tipped her head back to just look at Adora for a long minute, then, “Just out of curiosity is there anything you want that isn’t related to me?”

Adora’s brow furrowed and she spent a long minute thinking about it, before she said, “Maybe a new sword? A new sword would be cool. Not a magical one this time.”

Catra laughed at that--really laughed, rusty and deep.

“We should get out of here, you’re already all wrinkly,” She spun around in Adora’s arms and showed Adora her own pruny hands. Adora wrinkled her nose in disgust but smiled when Catra kissed the back of her hands. 

[They played rock paper scissors to see who had to get out first and figure out where the towels were hidden. Catra lost, and grumbled--what she felt to be-- a reasonable amount. But it was worth it when she got to bundle Adora in a big fluffy towel, and dry her hair for her, and kiss her, and kiss her, and keep kissing her.]

  
\--

It was later in bed, facing one another and sharing a pillow, when Adora asked “What about you, Catra? What do you want?”

“Why do you keep making me talk about my feelings when I’m trying to sleep?”

“I have to keep you on your toes somehow,” Adora said with a shrug and a grin. 

A cool night breeze, damp and sweet, twisted past the curtains into the room. Catra could hear crickets and the movement of the trees and Adora breathing into the space between them. The room was dark but Adora was still looking at her when Catra opened her eyes to look back. They both smelled like lavender and rosemary and clean sheets. Adora reached out to cradle her jaw and skim her thumb across Catra’s cheek. Catra would go back and change everything if it meant she could get here sooner. Catra took a deep, shaky breath in. 

“I want to keep apologizing,” she said, “I want to get better--to keep getting better-- to be better.”

Catra hated her night vision in that moment because it meant she had to see how Adora was positively glowing with pride and affection at those words. It was so bright and vulnerable that Catra had to look away. 

“I want sleepovers every night. For the rest of our lives,” she admitted, looking at the sliver of mattress between them, “And I want every _day_ with you too. I don’t actually care what we do, as long as... I get to do it with you.”

Catra’s throat was tight and her chest was tight and she was terrified to look back up at Adora. She knew that whatever she found there was going to be more than what she deserved. Adora tipped Catra’s head up anyway, with gentle fingers along her jaw. Adora was crying, when Catra looked, which was awful because it meant Catra started crying a little bit too. Adora pulled Catra closer and under her until Catra was boxed in by elbows, blonde lavender-scented hair, and shining grey-blue eyes. 

“That sounds great,” Adora said, voice thick and choked, “Let’s do it.”

Catra tugged her down to kiss her. Adora went willingly and returned every kiss twice fold until they were both breathless and grinning. 

\--

[ “Okay,” Catra said, nudging up to kiss Adora again quickly, “Now that we’ve planned the next, like hundred years of our lives, can we go the fuck to sleep?”

Adora took her weight off her elbows and plunked it all down on Catra’s chest. Catra let out a little wheeze, feeling pleasantly crushed. Her arms around Adora’s shoulders squeezed her even closer. 

Adora propped her chin on Catra’s chest looking starry eyed and wild, “Nope! Too excited to sleep now.”

Catra let her head thump against the pillow and groaned at the ceiling.

“What do you want to do tomorrow?” Adora asked, looking a bit like when Bow introduced her to coffee for the first time. 

“Hopefully sleep in, at this rate,” Catra remarked dryly. 

“What about the day after?”

“Did you miss the part where I said I didn’t care and it was very romantic?”

“Something romantic, got it,” Adora grinned insufferably and squirmed up to settle against the hollow of Catra’s throat. That was where Adora fell asleep--eventually. That was also where she woke up, the next bright and shining morning and the next and the next.]

\--


End file.
